I have discovered the worst way to die, or, how I fell incredibly ill one week, or, a story about sinuses

Those of you who know me also know that I'm unceasingly morbid - death is never very far from my mind. I watched a bit of Alison Hargreaves on K2 in a documentary last night - well, basically, she died climbing it; got blown off by a storm - and it came over me again: that's probably not a bad way to go, rite, in the middle of doing something you love? (Notwithstanding that, upon my articulation of this view, I was promptly informed that, blown off by a storm of that magnitude, she was probably in the air for a long time - for all the advantages of doing stuff one loves, speed in death is definitely a big, big plus.)

When I left practice, I told the firm partner: "I don't want to die in a law office, thinking I would always leave and realising then I never will." (Which is kind of just poetic speak for "fuck it, I've had enough".) This is, of course, the same man who subsequently revealed to me that the one thing he coveted most in his entire life was a Mercedes-Benz. Well, anyway, each to each's own, and so it is, even with death, which is the topic of a post I wrote earlier this year, and which I'm pasting below. And I know this is all incoherent, but some of us are under a fair amount of stress, so......

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Monday, April 18, 2005

I received a rare revelation on Saturday night - I got to find out what must truly be the worst way to die.

For those who knew (or not), I fell very ill last week and pretty much spent the last six days lying in bed in a daze. It's some cold-flu-virus thing that I got (not that it really mattered what I got, since the G&B (aka Grey & Bleak, aka London) doctor, whom I actually managed to see (!), said there is nothing I could do about it "except rest and take paracetemol". To which I wanted to splutter, "well, then what the f*** do I see you for?!" but that is another story for another day about life in the third world) but it made me utterly, totally, completely miserable. I don't think I've ever felt so ill in my life, not even the time I fainted three times in 10 minutes in the middle of the night. I mean, all I did that night was pass out - this time I spent 6 terrible days thrashing around in bed, unable to sleep, painfully awake every minute, gasping for air like a fish out of water, every part of me aching like sinews stretched on a rack - even my teeth were aching. My lips were raw, my nose was raw, my eyes were streaming. But, of course, there was nothing I could except "rest and take paracetemol" and, oh, feel vaguely suicidal for all the misery I was going through.

But it was during one of those long-suffering nights that I got my revelation. I've thought about the subject many times before, of course - or, rather, I've often thought about the reverse, as in, what would be the best way to die? ("In your sleep" ranks pretty high up, I can tell you). But it's hard not to think about the best ways to die without also thinking about the worst ways too. The excellent and almost sickeningly talented Zadie Smith wrote out, in her second novel, The Autograph Man (which, incidentally, is not even a fraction as good as her first, White Teeth, so don't bother with it) what she called a "Big Five List":

1. Cancer
2. AIDS
3. Poisoned Water System / London Underground Gas Attack
4. Permanent Neurological Damage (in youth, through misadventure)
5. Degenerative brain disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, etc. (in old age)

Which all this time I had pretty much agreed with. Until Saturday night, when I discovered the big winner.

And here it is: the worst way to die is to be buried alive.

And this is how I knew: I was lying in bed at about 3am on pretty much the worst night of my illness. I couldn't breathe - my sinuses were jammed shut, I was trying to breathe through my mouth, but the air was barely getting in, my throat was parched to breaking point, my mouth was hurting with the dryness. My duvet was suffocating me. My head was spinning. The darkness of the night was closing in on me. At that witching hour, what was an unsufferingly terrible cold became a grotesque difficulty in breathing. What was a grostesque difficulty in breathing became a rising nausea. What was a rising nausea became suffocation. What was suffocation became panic. What was panic became the fear of God. And right there and then: I felt like the whole world was closing in me. I felt, how would the French put it? Enterrement terrible.

I thought (many, many times last week) of Katherine in The English Patient, left alone in her slowly darkening cave as her light gave out. I thought of Kit and Port in The Sheltering Sky, of Port being so deathly ill, and Kit all alone with her own American patient in the dusty, abandoned room in the Algerian desert. I thought of the lonely grave of Paula Schultz. And then, insanely, I thought of Woody Allen in Manhattan Murder Mystery, his claustrophobia acting up when he was stuck in the lift with Diane Keaton, how he gasps and clutches at his throat, telling himself, "I see meadows, I see blue skies......" What was hilarious to me when I first watched it suddenly became a nightmarish vision, a joke like the laughter of ghouls.

This must be what it is like to be buried alive. With that terrible closing in, of darkness, of emptiness, that terrible loss of air and life. Suddenly, even my duvet threatened to jump into my mouth, cutting off the only means by which I could breathe. When I shut my mouth for just one second, instinctively my nostrils gather to draw breath, only to find that they can't. It is a terrible thing to discover you can't breathe. It is an even more terrible thing to discover that slowly, painfully, agonisingly, over the period of one long night. And that is how I came by the revelation of the worst way to die.

For a variety of reasons, I have been thinking alot these days about karma. I am realising great evil can be done by people, even ordinary people, not Hitler or Khomeini or Saddam Hussein. Great hurt. Great evil. And I have been thinking alot about things that go around, things that come around. I have, sadly, not always been a good person, even though I do try, even though fundamentally I believe I am a good person. And now that I have come to realize the worst way to die, I do not want to die this way.

At this point, my sinuses went "pop", and for two blessed seconds, I could breathe through my nose, although my nostrils were totally raw and it hurt like crazy. And then jam, they closed again. But two seconds was enough.

From today, I will strive to be a better person so that I may accummulate good karma and not die a terrible death. I made a mental list of all the things I will do, all the things I know I must do. A little self-sacrifice is worth it if to avoid the worst way to die.

I have had a most terrible week (actually, I have had the most terrible two weeks) but that's all over now. I'm better, I'm recovering, and I've had the most interesting revelation in the course of it. How many people can tell you honestly that they've been shown the most terrible way to die? I've been through a hell of alot of pain recently, but in its own way it has been a privilege, and I shall not take it lightly.